Monologue

Don Carlos Monologue from Don Carlos: A Play

From Don Carlos: A Play by Friedrich Schiller

male · anguished · 1:56 min

Indeed! was that Thy real thought? Oh, joy unspeakable! Right well I knew thou still wert true to me. (MARQUIS: I have deserved this from thee.) Hast thou not? And now we understand each other fully, It joys my heart. This kindness, this forbearance Becomes our noble souls. For should there be One rash, unjust demand amongst my wishes, Wouldst thou, for that, refuse me what was just? Virtue I know may often be severe, But never is she cruel and inhuman. Oh! it hath cost thee much; full well I know How thy kind heart with bitter anguish bled As thy hands decked the victim for the altar. (MARQUIS: What meanest thou, Carlos?) Thou, thyself, wilt now Fulfil the joyous course I should have run. Thou wilt bestow on Spain those golden days She might have hoped in vain to win from me. I'm lost, forever lost; thou saw'st it clearly. This fatal love has scattered, and forever, All the bright, early blossoms of my mind. To all the great, exalted hopes I'm dead. Chance led thee to the king--or Providence,-- It cost thee but my secret--and at once He was thine own--thou may'st become his angel: But I am lost, though Spain perhaps may flourish. Well, there is nothing to condemn, if not My own mad blindness. Oh, I should have known That thou art no less great than tender-hearted.

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